Welcome to Stranraer, a town blessed in its glorious location and with a rich history!
The Romans recognised Loch Ryan’s value when they built their port at Rerigonium, on the eastern shores of Loch Ryan around present-day Innermessan. The Romans held southern Scotland as far north as the Forth-Clyde line south of the Antonine Wall until 80AD. Rerigonium offered safe haven and a launching point for an invasion of Ireland though this never occurred. There was a small fort at Glenluce, 10 miles east of Stranraer.
A trip to Stranraer Museum will show that the area has been inhabited for millennia before that. There are stone and Bronze Age axes, querns for grinding corn and other artefacts. The local tribe, the Novantae, were part of the original British people.
After the Roman retreated behind Hadrian’s Wall, the next noteworthy event is the life of St Ninian. Though he lived on the next peninsula, the Machars, Stranraer does have links to him. Ninian was the son of a Romano-British chief who travelled to Rome around 400AD. He converted to Christianity, returned to his homeland, set up a priory, Candida Casa (The White House), from where he and his disciples spread Christianity around Scotland. He was the first to do so in UK some 150 years earlier than St Columba. Many towns far and wide reference St Ninian. There are two way-marks in our Museum, which guided the route from Killintringan (‘cill’ or church of Ninian) Bay on the western shores of The Rhins of Galloway, west of Stranraer, over Core Hill of Glaik and Larg just south of Stranraer the 40 miles or so to Whithorn Priory. Throughout the centuries thousands of pilgrims trod various routes to Whithorn as he was revered around Europe. Various Scottish kings, notably James IV and Mary, Queen of Scots made pilgrimages as did Richard III of England.
Stranraer, in Gaelic sròn reamhar, means ‘broad promontory’. Gaelic was spoken in Galloway until the 16th century. Prior to that the language was old Welsh when Galloway was part of Rheged, a kingdom stretching from modern day Wales as far north as Alt Clut, a British Kingdom centred on the River Clyde. King Urièn of North Rheged was perhaps the most resolute ruler, holding back the encroaching Anglo Saxons during the 6th century. He had two strongholds, one at Dunragit (‘Dun Rheged’) 5 miles outside Stranraer and the other near Carlisle at the western end of Hadrian’s Wall. He is thought to be the basis of the Arthurian legends.
Galloway retained its autonomy until the 13th century as a Viking stronghold. Fergus, son of Somerled, Lord of the Isles, ruled Galloway in 12th century. Fergus and his successors boasted a fleet of galleys to rival the Viking King of (Isle of) Man and the Lords of the Isles. After much fighting and the death of Lord Alan, Galloway was absorbed into Scotland in 1234.
Robert the Bruce, Earl of Cassilis’s family seat was in Maybole 40 miles to the north. He also held lands in Galloway. His campaign to regain Scottish independence began at Glen Trool in the Galloway hills in 1307 when he used the terrain and guerrilla tactics to defeat a much larger force. His brothers, Thomas and Alexander, were slain on the shores of Loch Ryan in 1306 during an abortive attempt to gain a foothold in Scotland. Robert went on to become King of Scotland and regain Scottish independence at Bannockburn.
Until the 16th century the town was situated at Innermessan. Gradually settlement moved west to the current location in the form of two villages, Chapel and St John’s Toun now part of Stranraer. In 1617 King James I granted the town a Royal Charter.
In the 17th century the area again came to prominence. The south-west of Scotland was a centre for religious independence. King Charles wanted to impose the Church of England, a hierarchical form of religion, headed by the king and administered by bishops, on the Scots, who had, from the mid 1500s, their own form of more egalitarian religion. The Scots, chiefly in the SW, stood firm. The Covenanters, who signed a National Covenant in 1638, were pursued and forced to convert. Services known as conventicles were held in secret and often in remote open-air spots. The king despatched troops under their leader, Sir James Graham of Dundee (Bonnie Dundee of song fame to some, Bloody Clavers to others - his family seat was Claverhouse) to force a change. He rounded up and killed those who refused, as witnessed by the Wigtown Martyrs, Mary Wilson and Mary McLauchlan, who were staked out in Wigtown Bay to drown or repent. They drowned! He also used the Castle of St John in Stranraer as a prison for more profitable prisoners. The Church of Scotland is still independent. The king did not win that fight!
Stranraer’s next moment of glory was in the 19th century. West Pier, where this event is taking place, was built in 1820 by Sir John Ross of Arctic exploration fame, one of the four most distinguished Arctic explorers. Sir John Ross was born in Inch Paris on the outskirts of Stranraer and joined the Royal Navy at the age of 9! He rose through the ranks and in 1818 was commissioned by Sir William Barrow, President of the Admiralty Board, to search for a speedier sea route to the Far East via northern Canada – the North-West Passage. It was a tricky undertaking in a wooden sailing ship. Sir John took another expedition to seek out the route in 1829. This expedition was still under sail in a wooden ship which was insufficiently robust for the icy conditions. It was trapped in ice and crushed. He managed to keep his crew alive in the testing Arctic conditions for 4 years until rescued by his nephew James Clark Ross. Eventually he got them all home safely to much acclaim from around Europe and a knighthood. His final voyage in 1850, when he was 72 years of age, was in a search for the missing Franklin expedition. This time he travelled in an iron-clad steam ship. Sir John was a man of wide-ranging interests. He returned to Stranraer and the house he had built, The North West Castle, which is now a hotel of the same name.
During World War II Loch Ryan offered a suitable alternative to major UK naval and merchant ports should they be knocked out of action by enemy bombing or invasion. The Ministry of War set up Military Port No. 2. Both sides of Loch Ryan were used. At Cairnryan 10,000 US and Canadian troops were stationed in camps with rail connections as they moved to join the conflict in Europe - the population of Stranraer itself was only 3,000 at the time! Opposite at Wig Bay seaplanes were stationed – Sunderlands, Catalinas and the appropriately-named Stranraers. These planes patrolled the North Atlantic sea routes to ensure shipping convoys’ safety thus keeping Britain fed and troops from North America safe to travel. Churchill and Eisenhower held strategy meetings in this area and Churchill often flew from here for meetings in USA. The mulberry harbours used in Operation Overlord on the beaches at Arromanches in 1944 were developed at Garlieston on Wigtown Bay. A new ferry port to Ireland was opened at Cairnryan Port in 2011; prior to that the ferry had been sited in Stranraer. The Stranraer-Larne route was the shortest sea crossing to Northern Ireland for 150 years!